Northcity4 with CWC

Product Information

Creative Women’s Circle (CWC) is a networking group for women involved in creative industries to share information, inspiration and ideas. The group is run by Melbourne-based designer, Tess McCabe. Events are held approximately six times per year at various locations around Melbourne, and feature an invited guest speaker(s). I attended one of these events on Saturday 4th August at Northcity4 in Brunswick. It was co-presented with Craft Victoria as a satellite event of their Craft Cubed festival, which is how I heard about it.

Northcity4 is a not-for-profit Artist Run Initiative encompassing a shared jewellery and object studio. The founders of Northcity4 are Anna Davern, Katherine Bowman, Romani Benjamin, Caz Guiney & Ali Limb, and all practising artists and teachers. They started Northcity4 because they wanted a place to work and learn, to discuss, critique and debate and to share all this with others.

On Saturday, they shared their stories with us – their individual career paths, their creative work, and the events that led them to forming Northcity4. They all had wonderful slides to accompany their stories making each one compelling and colourful but very different.

Afterwards we were treated to cake and tea or coffee and that’s when we had a chance to chat and network with each other. I met some lovely women, each one on their own unique creative path. It is affirming to meet like-minded people and share stories and ideas.

On the way out I took some pics of Claire McArdle’s colourful gate installation. As you can see, they are very bright and cheerful and greeted me on the way in. What you can’t see is that they are made from plastic shopping bags – the square bottomed type that are supposed to replace the thin ones, only they don’t break down and are more of a problem really. At least Claire has found a creative repurposed use for them. And I think it looks great.


In all a great way to spend a wet and dreary winter afternoon